I walk into a room
and everyone else seems born
knowing the steps—
how to laugh in the right rhythm,
how to wear their skin
without question.
Me—
I stumble over small talk,
like a foreign language
I was never taught.
Every smile feels borrowed,
every word rehearsed,
as if I snuck in
wearing someone else’s face.
Because long ago
my own was stolen—
shamed, silenced,
shaped into something
that learned to survive
by pretending.
Now I sit at tables
and wonder if they can tell—
that the child in me
still whispers:
You don’t belong.
You are counterfeit.
Imposter.
They will see through you.
And so I nod,
I laugh when they laugh,
but inside
I am still checking the exits,
still tugging at the seams
of this costume I never chose,
afraid it will split open
and show the raw truth
of who I was forced to be.
